Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/138

108 He is the prince of philosophical speculators, and because he cannot have his revenge perfect, according to the most refined idea his wish can form, he misses it altogether. So he scruples to trust the suggestions of the Ghost, contrives the scene of the play to have surer proof of his uncle's guilt, and then rests satisfied with this confirmation of his suspicions, and the success of his experiment, instead of acting upon it. Yet he is sensible of his own weakness, taxes himself with it, and tries to reason himself out of it.

"How all occasions do inform against me, And spur my dull revenge! What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? A beast; no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and god-like reason To rust in us unus'd: now whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on th' event,— A thought which quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom, And ever three parts coward;—I do not know Why yet I live to say, this thing's to do; Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means To do it. Examples gross as earth excite me: Witness this army of such mass and charge, Led by a delicate and tender prince, Whose spirit with divine ambition puff'd; Makes mouths at the invisible event, Exposing what is mortal and unsure To all that fortune, death, and danger dare.